THE MORNING LIST
Beneath the inaccessible Alpine peaks, the Swiss cantons take shape from lakes to rivers. The abundance of water naturally creates so many paths, often old, open to cyclists. Thanks to the network SwitzerlandMobilitythe country is crisscrossed with marked routes, from the easiest, like the Mittelland route, to the wildest, in the high altitude lakes above Engelberg.
In Basel
Whether you come here for its contemporary art fair or for its relaxed lifestyle, Basel is more than welcoming for cyclists. Booking accommodation in the city entitles you to the BaselCard free of charge, which, among other many advantages, allows you to rent an electric bike for 20 euros a day from Rent a Bike, at the station. With such a sesame, the Protestant cathedral and the Tinguely fountain are only two pedal strokes from the swans of Park im Grünen or the towers of the Roche laboratory, designed by Herzog & de Meuron. The towers, which can be visited in an hour, are part of a 14-kilometre circuit on both sides of the Rhine, discovering the best of Basel’s 20th century architecture.e century. The opportunity to discover the unmissable concrete origami imagined by Hermann Baur in 1961 to house the School of Design: a pure masterpiece.
On the Mittelland road
To ride between 300 and 500 meters above sea level (and never get too hot), take the Mittelland road, which crosses Switzerland for 375 kilometers, between Romanshorn, on the shores of Lake Constance, and Lausanne, avoiding the mountains. The final part – six days between Solothurn and Yverdon-les-Bains – is easier to organize as a family, with stages between 10 and 30 kilometers. From Lake Biel to the market gardens of Seeland, from the ramparts of Morat to the lakeside village on stilts of Gletterens, the road offers a lot to see. With the beaches of Yvonand, on Lake Neuchâtel, then the thermal baths of Yverdon-les-Bains, the journey ends under the sign of water. You can follow this route independently or be accompanied for the rental of bicycles, luggage and accommodation by Eurotrek, the Swiss specialist in soft mobility.
At the Col des Mosses
The first mountain stage of the Tour de France 2022 started from Switzerland. If the 192 kilometers that separate Aigle, a small town of 8,000 inhabitants in the canton of Vaud, from the resort of Châtel, in Haute-Savoie, are reserved for champions, you can still follow in their footsteps by limiting yourself to the first 30 kilometers. Because the climb to the Col des Mosses, at an altitude of 1,445 metres, corresponds perfectly to the capacities of a good amateur cyclist. The descent to the bottom of the valley, to Les Moulins, a village in the commune of Château-d’Œx, is one of the most beautiful that one can imagine. The milk from the cows who watch the two-wheelers go by gives Etivaz, a hard cheese, produced only in the summer in the mountain pastures. Upon arrival, the Gruyère-Pays-d’Enhaut Regional Nature Park offers easier but just as typically Swiss walks.
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